QALQILIYA (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces suppressed a weekly march in the village of Kafr Qaddum in the northern occupied West Bank district of Qalqiliya on Friday, injuring four Palestinians with rubber-coated bullets fired by Israeli forces at demonstrators.

Coordinator of the popular resistance in the village Murad Shteiwi said that Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets at protesters, causing “slight injuries” to four Palestinians who were treated at the scene by Palestinian Red Crescent medical crews.

Shteiwi added that an Israeli bulldozer, escorted by Israeli forces, damaged the main network of the village’s water supply, causing the water to cut off in the village for hours before the damage was fixed by the village’s council.

Shteiwi said that the march was launched for the 41st anniversary of Land Day, when Palestinians across the territory and Israel commemorate the killing of six Palestinians by Israeli forces in 1976 amid mass nonviolent protests following Israel’s confiscation of 2,000 hectares of land belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Shteiwi added that foreign peace activists and representatives of a Palestinian labor union also joined the march.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an she would look into the incident.

Residents of Kafr Qaddum began staging weekly protests in 2011 against land confiscations, as well as the closure of the village's southern road by Israeli forces. The road, which has been closed for 14 years, is the main route to the nearby city of Nablus, the nearest economic center.

The Israeli army blocked off the road after expanding the illegal Israeli settlement of Kedumim in 2003, forcing village residents to take a bypass road in order to travel to Nablus, which has extended the travel time to Nablus from 15 minutes to 40 minutes, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been detained during the demonstrations since their start in 2011, and at least 84 protesters have been injured by live fire, including 12 children, Shteiwi told Ma'an during a similar protest last year.

Some 120 others have been detained at demonstrations and were subsequently held in Israeli custody for periods ranging between four and 24 months, Shteiwi said at the time, adding that they had paid fines totaling some 25,000 shekels (approximately $6,488).

Over the course of five years, an elderly protester was killed after suffering from excessive tear gas inhalation, one youth lost his eyesight, and another his ability to speak, he added.

In December, Israeli forces became the focus of international condemnation when Israeli soldiers wearing matching plain clothes and black ski masks detained a seven-year-old Palestinian during a weekly protest in the village.

Rights groups and activists pointed out that the video seemed to show the soldiers using the child as a human shield during clashes.

B’Tselem strongly condemned the incident at the time, saying that “it does not take a lawyer to know that the detention of a seven-year-old child by soldiers, keeping him by their side as they shoot at his friends, is deplorable and utterly unacceptable."